breaks/lunches

[courtnes]

we have facilites in MN and one in OK. read your paragraph regarding "the rule for meal periods" but wondering if an employee can opt to not take a lunch. for instance, an employee is scheduled for 8hrs and wants to work his/her full 8hrs with no lunch. do we as employeers have to make sure that employees who work more than 6hrs/day take at least a 30min lunch break or can the employee work past the 6hrs per their request?
thank you!
courtney stevens
human resources recruiter
young america corp.

 

[loku]

Breaks from work

Federal law has no provision for meals or breaks.

Sec. 601 of Chapter 7 of the Maine Labor and Industry Code provides that "In the absence of a collective bargaining agreement or other written employer-employee agreement providing otherwise, an employee, as defined in section 663, may be employed or permitted to work for no more than 6 consecutive hours at one time unless he is given the opportunity to take at least 30 consecutive minutes of rest time, except in cases of emergency in which there is danger to property, life, public safety or public health. This rest time may be used by the employee as a mealtime." In other words, in Maine, the employee must be given the opportunity to take the break. The employee does not have to take the break.

Sorry, I don't know about OK; however, probably there also, breaks are at the discretion of the employee.

 

[courtnes]

thank you for the response! it will surely help get me started. just to be sure though i need specific info for minnesota and oklahoma. . . can anyone give me info on these states?